And The Rains Come In Waves
by Dream Charmer
Summary: All wars end, and when you finally get your happily ever after, Sakura discovers, it's important to march on and never look behind you. Because if you're accidentally marching in the wrong direction, the only way to survive is to run even faster.
1. Chapter 1

Who: Sakura, Sasuke and some important others.

When: after the War. Or so it seems.

What: if only I knew. But may contain traces of romance. Not a fluffy kind, mind you. And don't be fooled by all the jokes either!

* * *

_(Chapter One)_

**Flowers In Her Hand**

-/-

Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,  
because in that moment you'll have gone so far  
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,  
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

- **Pablo Neruda**, _"Don't Go Far Off"_

-/-

''I really, really can't believe this is happening," Ino says firmly. "And especially that this is actually happening to_ you_. I mean – of all people. You."

"Thanks, Ino." Sakura tries to make her voice dry as a desert wind but fails, and sticks her tongue out at Ino instead. "You're a true friend."

The tea is still hot in their cups, and the evening air is like warm milk, and the world is full of many little sounds: muffled conversation across the teahouse, music across the street, echo of footsteps and things being dropped and picked up again, and the rustle of leaves and the flapping of wings as birds fly from roof to roof.

"You know you can count on me," Ino replies and then she smiles, sudden and bright as the sun, and tosses her golden hair that Sakura has always envied, and it catches the light and all eyes are drawn to her as if she were a goddess at the altar.

"_That_ should be forbidden." Sakura is not very good at faking frustration, but the occasion is worth a try. "That hair is a secret weapon and we're not supposed to use those inside the village."

"Shut up," yawns Ino. "Anyway, can't see what's your problem with it. You've got your man – whom, I have to point out, in my tender young years, I intended to make _my_ man – now step aside and let me find bitter consolation in what's still left lying around."

"Oh come on." Sakura rolls her eyes. "You were never all that hung up on him."

Ino wags a finger at her. "Oh, but he used to be a suitable object of desire – so handsome and stylish, not to mention frowning and brooding all the time –"

"How's that supposed to be appealing?"

"Don't you dare pretend you were any different. It added mystery to the bubbling brew in the cauldron. It hinted at the tragic past."

"His past _was_ tragic, Ino."

"Yes. I'm sorry." Ino wipes away her lazy mischievous smirk and sighs apologetically. "I just meant to say that when we were kids it all looked... well, simple and less sinister. Like there were no shades of any color, you know. Black was black, white was white. Enemies were all bad, bad people. Tragic heroes were the best. I miss that sometimes."

"Believing in tragic heroes?"

"Living in an uncomplicated world where right and wrong really are the opposite of each other, idiot." Ino reaches out and lightly touches the petals of the flowers that stand in a jar on their table. She brought them along, from her family shop, and asked the waitress for the water to prevent them from wilting too soon. "Beautiful, aren't they?"

"They are." Sakura thinks of all the flowers that she never grew in a garden of her own, of all the flowers she never saw bloom and wither, and then of all those she never received from him. "Why did you bring them here?"

"For you, of course. After all, today we're officially celebrating the greatest success of your love life. You're finally in a realationship with the man you have loved since the world began."

"I can hardly believe it myself."

And she thinks of Sasuke and of the long path she has walked to arrive at the same place as he, and is surprised it happened at all, because it surely couldn't have.

For a moment, the air changes, becomes thin and crisp and fragile, and she sees herself and Ino, sipping tea and chatting, as if from a distance or through a thick glass.

And then the world comes back again, and in that world, Sasuke has finally chosen her.

-/-

_drip, drip, drop_

She lowers her eyes and looks down at the blade protruding from the chest of her attacker. It's narrow and it gleams dully in the dying light of the setting sun. Its edge hints at the sort of sharpness that not only easily cuts through the flesh and bone, but is almost painful to look at.

The man is very still for the longest of moments, mouth agape, gaze fixed on the sword, and then he understands. His left hand comes up to grip the blade in a futile effort to change or at least postpone what has already become inescapable. A soft, gurgling sound is born deep within his throat as the blood inside his body rushes in a million wrong directions.

_drip, drip, drop_

The droplets hit the dry earth with a flat, hollow sound. She can see more on his lips; a smudge, and then a trickle running down his chin and neck, right into a high collar of his dark vest. His fingers, now stained with red that looks gold and black to her, slide off the weapon's edge and his arm hangs limply down his side. In one motion, the sword retracts, and the body sinks into the dust of the road, still warm from a day of baking heat and no shade.

The summer is not a merciful season in the Land of Earth.

The same thick dust coats her sandals, and covers her clothes, and turns her pink hair almost gray. It has been making her cough all day. Down below, it prevents the blood of the dead shinobi from spreading quickly. Instead, the pool expands with agonising slowlness, gaining terrain little by little, in the same eerie silence that was spread over the place before the incident.

She raises her gaze to look into the eyes of the man she has never stopped loving.

His are black and fathomless, and when he speaks, his soft voice reaches into her and coils around her heart like a snake and squeezes gently.

"Sakura."

And she hopes Sasuke will be gentle to her from now on, but despite the fact that he has protected her here in the course of their first mission together – just him and her, far away from home – she thinks: _it can't be real, can it? it can't. _Perhaps she is too used to being rejected and cast aside, and now is unable to truly comprehend how much their relationship has changed. Odd that, seing how that has always been her only desire.

She stores the image in her memory, the improbable picture of the two of them getting along, and tries not to think of a nagging feeling that something is not what it seems.

The world keeps turning.

-/-

* * *

A/N: the story will have several chapters of about the same length as this one because I got tired of writing great long walls of text, which is my usual approach, and decided to try a different format. I promise a chapter every two days - even going to stick to it because the story is basically finished, only some small stuff remains.

P.S.: please review! :)


	2. Chapter 2

_(Chapter Two)_

**All Things Are Quite Silent**

-/-

Lay me on a bed of dreams, sweet love  
I'm not strong or willing anymore  
The lightness and weight of my obscure truth  
I cannot carry further, I cannot endure;

– **Ipshita Chakraborty, **_"Come hither"_

_-/-_

_Haruno_ has never been an important shinobi name. The blood that runs through her veins does not carry the sleeping memory of long-forgotten heroes, keeps hidden neither secrets nor ancient techniques. Her predecessors never held the fate of the world in the palms of their hands. The lives of many always depended on someone else's decision.

They were a reliable mass in the wars of the greater people, the we-can-always-count-on-those little group that got brought up when numbers were discussed and maps drawn in the tents of the generals and clan leaders.

If she closes her eyes, she can see them there, important men shaping the history of the world as they drink their _sake_, without even noticing: hard, grave faces, scars old and new alike, rough hands that cannot remember how it feels to hold anything but weapons, eyes full of weariness and determination and hatred. She can hear their urgent, hoarse voices arguing about the disposition and counter attacks over the crackling fire and can feel the smell of burning wood and night flowers and metal.

Sakura wonders what they would say about her and others like her if they could see the way the shinobi world turned out to be. What would they say about the countries and nations they strived to mold and shape as they saw fit? Would they condemn their descendants for their choices or would they be proud?

She once asked her father if their clan had been around when the village was being created.

"Oh no," was the reply. "We were elsewhere then, in the north, if I remeber it right. We joined later, when Senju Hashirama was already the first Hokage."

When we were sure the Senju and the Uchiha had finally buried the axe of war, Sakura thought, feeling something akin to resignation well up inside her chest.

Hers is not a clan of heroes.

-/-

"What if I had someone, Sasuke? Back in the village? You've never even asked. Never asked what I did while you were not around."

He pauses for a moment, his breath hot on her neck, then props himself up on one elbow so he can see her face. Otherwise, he makes no move to get off her and she doesn't try to push him away. The ground is hard and uneven under her back, and his weight is enough to make her aware of it.

His mouth quirks slightly, a curving narrow slash of darkness that hints at the many things he will never say.

"What if you did?" There is a hint of a amusement hidden in his voice, a lazy curiosity. Or perhaps she has only imagined it.

"Wouldn't it bother you?"

"No. I would pity them."

"Oh? And why is that?" she asks in a sharp, clipped tone, and his smirk widens.

"Because you would leave them in the end, anyway. For me."

She wonders if she should slap him, so arrogant he sounds, so cynical – so unlike anything she might want to hear from him. She probably should, she thinks. Her hands are free, after all.

Instead, she lies motionless, pinned to the ground by his weight, and listens to his heart beat close to hers.

"You've become such a jerk," Sakura says, and a part of her that is silent and ever watchful, deep inside, takes note of how calm she is. Nothing stirs – no anger, no disappointment, no sadness; and it's wrong but it's right. She knows that no matter what happens, no matter how the wind blows and what Sasuke turns out to be, in the very end, she shall never be able to rip him out of her heart.

His face is unreadable, mask-like, his and not his at the same time; a pattern of a soft, semi-transparent dark that seems to be lit from inside, and heavy, inky shadows; familiar features that make up a face of a complete stranger. He reminds her of someone now, but her mind is in slumber, vacant and slow, and the memory slips away.

His eyes are blacker than black, swallowing whatever little light there is.

Suddenly, he seems older – by ten years, or twenty, or a lifetime, as if the last remnants of the illusions and dreams of his youth had been washed away and nothing was left to recreate him as he used to be, so another person – someone hard and merciless and cruel – took his place without her noticing.

"If only I knew, back then, that you would turn into this," she says softly, and he tilts his head slightly.

"You knew." And it looks like he is smiling, and she prefers not to think of the alternatives. The whole conversation seems surreal, dream-like. "You just forgot later. You chose to."

Inside her, the silence is deeper than the ocean.

Inside her, there is a girl she used to be, the stubborn, fierce little creature that wants to argue and object, to explain that hoping something might happen is not the same as convincing yourself that it will, and that believing strongly, with all your heart, can make dreams come true. She wants to tell him this and a thousand other things he has undoubtedly heard a thousand times. Her words could be the arrows that would finally reach the target.

She feels like a soldier who went into battle only to find out that the enemy had long since occupied the headquarters.

The war is over and fighting is pointless.

"Ah," she sighs. "I guess you're right. I've remembered now."

And then that other one, the one who came to love her here and now, in this wild place under the stars instead of Sasuke begins to kiss her, and although his lips are harsher, more demanding, and his fingers are no longer gentle, she is elated and full of happiness, because for once she feels needed, indispensable, precious like the last drop of water is to a man lost in a desert.

In the back of her mind, the only delirious thought remains – if she can bring herself to remember who it is that he reminded her of just then, she will find out what is going on with him and her and the world around them.

She closes her eyes and orders herself to forget.


	3. Chapter 3

_(Chapter 3)_

**Stars Are Falling**

-/-

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,  
Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,  
Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble  
The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink,  
Here now in his triumph where all things falter,  
Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,  
As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,  
Death lies dead.

– **Algernon Charles Swinburne, **_"A Forsaken Garden"_

-/-

The Uchiha compound is a place where shadows come to rest.

When Sasuke first announces that he intends to move back there from his apartment in the center of the village, Sakura can hardly bring herself to believe it.

"Are you sure it's a good idea?" she asks, quite certain that he could not come up with a worse idea even if he tried.

"It's my home," he says, and his tone leaves no room for discussion. He has decided and it is final.

She offers to help with packing, and he nods and then ignores her almost completely. Next day she shows up on his doorstep and rings the bell, she understands immediately that the apartment is empty. She goes down the stairs and then heads straight towards the old district where the Uchiha clan compound remained deserted for more than a decade. It has survived the attack of the Akatsuki, somewhat, due to how far from the epicenter it was.

She thinks that perhaps it would be better if it had been destroyed completely. She will never mention those thoughts to Sasuke.

The gate is whole, oddly enough, and open and the remaining houses stand silent, like sentinels, windows empty and lifeless as the glass was all shattered by the chakra wave. They gape accusingly at the sky, at the desolation the once happy place has become, at _her_ – the intruder who has come to disturb the memory of the dead. Here and there Sakura can see roofs that have caved in, and half-crumbled walls covered with ivy. The stones under her feet are old and worn down, and between them the grass and wild flowers have grown. They tickle her ankles as she makes her way slowly into the frozen heart of the past. Nothing looks menacing or foreboding in itself, and yet she has never felt more _watched_ in her entire life. It is as if she is surrounded by invisible ghosts who have nothing better to do than observe her. Then again, she thinks, what else is a ghost to do?

She searches for Sasuke for some time, unable to bring herself to call out his name. It seems almost a sacrilege to break the silence. She wonders if the house of his parents still stands, and even if it does, will he really want to go back there? It's also the place where they were killed, after all.

She finds him eventually on the very edge of the district – the very edge of the _village_ – sitting on a threshold of a building that looks almost whole, if incredibly unsafe. She approaches slowly and stops a dozen paces away from him, hesitant, as he looks up at her, his face as calm and impassive as usually.

"Is this where your family used to live?" she asks finally. She doesn't really think it is but that is as good an opening line as any other.

"No. But our old house is not fit to live it. It has three walls now, and not nearly enough roof."

"Oh," Sakura says faintly. She has never felt so awkward in her entire life. "I see."

"You do?" Sasuke sounds bemused, as if he were aware of the fact that she might not have grasped all the meanings he intended. "Good."

"Yes... well, yes. I do." _Say something_, Sasuke, she thinks, almost angry at him, _help me out,_ _or are you enjoying this, you jerk, I'm here for you, can't you at least do as much for me?_

Unexpectedly, he decides to show mercy.

"This house used to belong to my mother's cousin and her family," he says conversationally. "It's so small because she only had one son and was a widow. Didn't need a bigger one."

"Do you remember her well?" Sakura asks, happy to see him opening up for once. "Were you friends with her son?"

He pauses, something akin to puzzlement flickering across his features. Then he shrugs and looks away.

"No. I don't even remember their faces."

-/-

"So, is it final then?" Ino asks absent-mindedly as she examines her hair for potential split ends. "You're really going to live with him?"

"Of course I am." Sakura frowns slightly, uneasy and unable to understand the reason behind it.

"In that place?"

"If by that you mean the old Uchiha district, then yes, we'll be living there." And she thinks, _but I wish we didn't._

"But it's a ruin!"

"Not all of it," Sakura says, driven mostly by the ever-present need to object to anything Ino says than any real feeling. "Sasuke has found a house that looks perfectly alright."

"_Looks_ is the key word here. I bet it's full of mice. And snakes." Ino makes a vague gesture with her left hand. "And the roof will likely leak."

"Never knew you were afraid of mice of all things, Pig. How do you even go on missions outside the village? The woods are full of them, not to mention the rest."

"Don't be ridiculous. Encountering a mouse in the woods is perfectly fine, finding one sharing your pillow like it's the most natural thing in the world is not."

"You're not helping." Sakura sighs. "Anyway, I'm sure it can all be fixed."

"Certainly. But why bother in the first place? Does Sasuke really want to live in a place where his whole clan was slaughtered? By his own brother, no less. And yes, I remember he had a reason, but how does it make living there any more bearable?"

Sakura closes her eyes momentarily, the eerie watchful silence of the abandoned streets coming back to her and flooding her from inside. Were there any birds? Why can't she remember them singing? Was there something left of the previous owners? Did she even go inside the house? She must be tired, she thinks, tired and maybe a bit frightened and distracted and–

"Sakura? Sakura!" She blinks and finds Ino peering into her face with a worried expression. "You're alright? Spacing out on people is not like you."

"Sorry." Sakura shakes her head like one waking up from a long, confusing dream might do to make sure it really has ended. "Don't know what came over me." Ino's face seems to hover both inches away from hers and impossibly far at the same time, and Sakura experiences a deeply unsettling sensation of being in two places at once, and she knows there's not enough of her to actually do this.

She rubs a hand across her forehead and stands up with an air of finality.

"I'll be going home now, Ino," she announces. "I need to catch some sleep to clear my head before I can confront packing. It's all a little too much, I guess. I mean, I've been waiting so long for it, for _him_, and now it all suddenly seems to be coming together, and I, well..."

"Ugh, don't sweat it. It's fine." Ino is smiling again, reassuringly. "For you it must be like the end of the War, right? Years of fighting and losing, and getting up to fight again, and never giving up even when everything is just no use, no matter what you're doing – and then bang! You win where you never expected to win. When we defeated Madara and that monster bitch, that Kaguya, I spent months coming to terms with the victory! Just couldn't believe it. And now look at you – you've been doing nothing but chasing Sasuke since you were six, I think. And finally you got your prize."

"Right." Sakura smiles back automatically and turns on her heel. "See you around."

As she walks out of the flowershop and hurries up the street toward the house she is going to leave tomorrow, perhaps forever – hopefully forever – the only thing on her mind is the War.

How can it be, she asks herself, that she never thought of it, not even once, before Ino brought up the subject? How could she not be remembering them all the time – those years spent in training, then in battles, all leading up to the final confrontation with Madara Uchiha and Kaguya, whoever, _what_ever she really was? Now that she was concentrating, she could see their faces clearly in her mind – Madara's sharp, angular features, his wild eyes, his savage smile; and Kaguya's blank face, almost devoid of expression, her terrible power that was out of this world. The despair, the hope, the feelings of helplessness and determination.

How can it be that only a moment ago it was like all those things had never even existed or happened in a dream?

She tells herself firmly that her joy and happiness are stronger than any memory of darkness may be.

She doesn't quite believe it herself.


	4. Chapter 4

_(Chapter Four)_

**The Place Of Shadows  
**

-/-

What is it haunts the summer air?  
A sense of something lately passed away;  
Something pleasant, something fair,  
That was with us yesterday,  
And is no longer there.

**-Alfred Austin**, _"Hymn to Death"_

-/-

The rains have come and the sky over the village is a roiling mass of racing clouds, dark and full of water ready to spill. At night, the stars and the moon are hidden away, invisible, and the woods loom black and menacing, leaves rattled by the gusts of the wind. The trees seem to be advancing on the abandoned district; an enemy at the gate. It's has grown colder, and the air is dank and slightly sour and tastes of long-forgotten promises. The rest of the village pretends the place does not exist.

In their old house on the edge of the district, Sakura pulls all three blankets up to her chin and shivers, and regrets her stuborness, and laments her loneliness, without a word.

Sasuke is away, on a dangerous mission in the Land of Earth, tracking down a scroll rumored to contain a description of a forbidden technique, and she wishes she were there with him, instead of all alone in a place where one of the greatest tragedies of the village occurred. In fact, she only wishes to be _else_where. Provided that it's not here, it should be fine.

But she knows it's her weakness talking, and there's nothing Sakura hates more than being weak – or rather, weaker than her friends. Weak means unneeded, unwanted, a burden for them to carry around while wishing silently they could leave it behind. She spent her whole life trying to catch up with them, with _him_, and now that she's finally succeeded, she'd rather die than give up.

Maybe she simply has a fever. It should not be so cold yet. It's in her very bones, even the very small ones – she doesn't believe it's possible to get warm again once you're that cold.

She thinks longingly of her old apartment, cozy and full of familiar things, permeated with familiar, comfortable smells and memories of her childhood, which was a happy one despite all the upheavals and tears. She remembers the way the sun would always flood the room with the morning light during the summer, and the way the flowers would bloom in the evening in the garden across the street. An old widow lived there, a diminutive woman with the hair that was completely gray and a perpetual smile on her face. Sakura didn't trust that smile - not because it was malicious or nasty, which it was not, but because it was obviously fake, artificial, a fragile paper mask put on to conceal something else entirely that lay beneath. And she always seemed to be looking _through_ people, not _at_ them, even when she was talking to someone. Except that she hardly ever said anything.

And every evening she would take a rickety chair outside and sit on it, looking at the flowers, as the clock ticked on and the sun disappeared behind the mountains. The flowers themselves never changed either – big and red as if their roots had fed on blood instead of water.

When she was little, Sakura used to think the old widow was crazy. Now she is afraid she might become like this herself – if one day Sasuke does not return. Then she'll be truly alone. Only she won't even have a garden.

Sakura sleeps, and in her dreams, the great red flowers sway gently in the breeze, their velvety petals unfurling toward the last rays of the setting sun, their hungry roots writhing, reaching deep into the earth. She inhales deeply.

But the flowers don't smell like anything.

-/-

She trains in the morning, works in the village hospital during the day, does medical research in the evening, and when she gets home, she goes for a walk.

She has taken to wandering aimlessly around the Uchiha compound, hoping in vain that if she spends more time outside, among the sleeping houses and weeded pathways, the place might come to accept her. She moves slowly, trying to shake off the unpleasant sensation of being constantly watched, and watched with suspicion and distrust.

The house where Sasuke used to live with his parents and his brother stills stands, but indeed it's unfit to live in. She enters anyway, stepping carefully on the rotten floorboards – how stupid would she look if she fell and broke an ankle. It's empty and hollow, but the air tastes bittersweet and stale. She finds shards of glass and broken pottery and an ornate hair stick that clearly used to belong to a woman, covered with dust but seemingly unbroken – she reaches down for it, then draws away. Somehow, she knows it would be wrong to take anything away from here.

The blood is smeared on the walls, faded-out, almost colorless. She stares at it for what might be an hour or a minute, and thinks: this is how death looks when forgotten. She stops at the center of what must have been the main room all those years ago and listens. The silence is enveloping her in its many invisible layers, drowning out every sound until all she can hear is the bated breath of those whose death, in the end, remained unavenged. Their presence, their accusing stares weight down on her and make her want to turn and run. Instead, she lies down on the floor, on her back, and looks up at the low, dark clouds the wind chases across the sky. At that moment she's almost glad for the lack of the roof.

She lets the silence wash over her, cover her with its heavy mantle. She tries to find a dent in the impenetrable armor of this lonely place, a crack for her to seep in, a corner for her to call her own.

The grass has grown tall all around the house, but there's no wind, and nothing moves as Sakura walks away. The place rejects her whatever she does.

She wonders if Sasuke can feel it.

-/-

She sits on the threshold, wrapped in a blanket, looking out into the darkness of the night with unblinking eyes. There's a tea-cup beside her, but it's empty, and getting up to brew more is too much work and fatigue.

"Where is Sasuke now, Sakura?" Itachi says from behind her in his quiet, monotonous voice.

"Away," she says, not turning around. She wonders if it rains over where Sasuke is right now. She doubts it.

"Away," he repeats. "When will he be coming back?"

"Who knows," she says. "Soon."

"Why are you not with him?"

Why indeed? "He doesn't need me there. He doesn't need any help." For some, reason, her voice takes on a plaintive note which she immediately wants to banish.

"Doesn't he?" The calm, soft reproach makes her feel weak and stupid.

She seeks to explain herself. "He said he'd go alone. And it's Sasuke. It's hard to argue. He has the Sharingan..." she trails off, thinking that Sasuke's eyes used to belong to Itachi. She wonders how Itachi feels about the arrangement. Does he even care? Does he care about anything now?

"Sharingan is not everything, Sakura," he says after a while. She can imagine the look of slight consternation and disappointment on his face, but she doesn't want to see it.

"I'm sorry," she says instead. She has no idea why she feels obliged to justify her choices and actions.

"You are not doing what you have to do," Itachi says simply, with an almost inaudible sigh. "You should not be sitting here now."

"No," she says. "No, I shouldn't."

She shouldn't be here at all.


	5. Chapter 5

(Chapter Five)

**A Better Resurrection  
**

-/-

I had a dream, which was not all a dream

**-George Gordon Byron**, _"Darkness"_

-/-

"So it's a dream," Sakura says. "That's what it is, isn't it?"

"Of course." She can sense his amusement – it feels deep and dark, like night over the ocean.

"I'm not even surprised anymore," she sighs. "I've been dreaming all sorts of strange things since I settled here."

"Suitable place for dreaming."

"Sometimes," she says, "I wish I'd never come here."

"And does that help?"

"Does what help?"

"The wishing."

"It doesn't." She turns around to face him, a tall dark silhouette outlined against the window, a shadow more substantial than any other shadows. Outside, the sky has cleared for once, and the stars are visible again, distant and washed clean by the recent rain. "But you don't have to be cruel, you know."

"I don't really have to be anything," he replies, nonchalant.

"Well, no, you don't," she agrees and moves closer. It's weird enough just talking to him like this; being unable to see his face makes her feel suspended in midair, unable to choose between falling and flying. "You don't even have to_ be_, at all," she points out, bitingly.

"Now who's being cruel?" His voice betrays no sign of displeasure or annoyance.

There are things he doesn't say, doesn't even intend to say, of that she is quite certain – she imagines them like great, patient hunting dogs, sleeping in front of the fire in the house of their master. Soon enough they will be out to follow the trail again, hot blood steaming on the snow, but now it's time to rest.

"You deserved it." She shakes her head. "Because of you, so many people died and more still suffered... Why are you even here?"

"Where else would I be?"

"I thought you hated this village. You wanted to raze it to the ground."

His eyes flash red in the dark – his Sharingan has activated, and she thinks of how unique each design is. Sasuke's is more black than red, but it means nothing now.

"Not just the village," he reminds mildly. "The whole shinobi world."

"Why did you come back then?"

"Because each ending is a beginning," he says. "In dreams and in real life."

"In real life, you're dead, though," Sakura says and feels her throat constrict unexpectedly. She knows she should not feel pity for one so vile and ruthless, so unburdened by the weight of his crimes, not even in an imagined place of dreams and visions; but something deep inside her can no longer tell the difference between this man and the one she chose to love from the moment she first lay eyes on him.

"It's a dream, Sakura. What does it matter?" His Sharingan, more red than black, is the only thing she can think of. His Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan created from the eyes of his younger brother, dead for almost a century now. In his grave, Sakura thinks, not even bones remain by now, but this other one can never find respite. There is no rest for the wicked.

"It doesn't matter," she says. "You're right."

"Good," he says. "Come here then." And she does.

She wraps her arms around him, and rests her head against his chest. The beating of his heart is steady, familiar; the warmth of him envelops her; it has been like this a hundred times. She feels drowsy and doesn't fight it – there is no safer place to be than near him. He smells of rain and shadows and metal, same as always.

"Isn't it supposed to be different?" she mutters, not quite sure if it even makes sense to him.

"Not at all," he says. "Nothing has changed."

"Ah." She smiles in the darkness, unseen. "But I'm going to come on the mission with you anyway."

"If you want to," he says, "you might as well be useful."

-/-

she sleeps she dreams

–and she can see them all, the proud, hard faces, the red eyes narrowed in disgust, in hatred, hands reaching for weapons, metal gleaming in the light of the waning moon, she cannot hear their voices over the howling of the wind but she knows they curse and swear to kill each and every one–

she recoils she falls back she is afraid

–and she can see him returning home, where love and laughter always awaited him, but now they don't, and she watches him find them all, one by one, blood pooling under them, seeping through the floorboards she will walk on more than a decade later, he calls their names, there is a woman slashed almost in half, and a man with no head on his shoulders, and the head is some way off, in the corner, and in the next room he finds–

she closes her eyes and cries out stop stop she doesn't want to see

–and she can see the older one in the forest, kneeling on the grass, the blade he used to slaughter those he loved and loves still lying a dozen paces away from him, the moonlight is streaming through the foliage, the eerie silver light, and she thinks he is crying or perhaps he is not because no tears are enough to wash away the blood he spilled, and he looks at his hands–

she reaches out she wants to say it's terrible what you've done but your brother lives

–and she can see the dim-lit room, scarcely furnished, one man lying on a futon, young and black-haired, breathing rapidly, his chest rising and falling, a white bandage covering his eyes; and another one kneeling by his side, same hair, only longer, same bone structure, only sharper, his eyes are red-on-black, his mouth set in a hard line, his hands balled into fists; and the first one says, rasping, you have to avenge us brother now you can you have my eyes, and the second one answers–

she runs to them she cries no it's all wrong she falls over

–and she can see the valley where only a few hours ago a battle raged like no other battle the world had known before, and one man is alive, he has been lucky and he is dragging himself away, stumbling and falling sometimes, but getting up to his feet again, he has a home to return to, he has a wife back there, he is thinking of nothing else; and another man is left lying among the ruins and devastation, he too is alive though the first one doesn't know, and he has more than the first one although neither of them know it yet, he has all the nothing, all the emptiness in the world and it's a heavier weight by far, and he is going to survive and outlive the winner–

she spins and soars and ascends

and she finally knows

and then

-/-

"Finally, you're awake."

Sakura tries to open her eyes and focus, but everything is hazy and blurry, and the only thing she can see is a lot of light and in the middle of it, a patch of darkness from which the voice seems to be coming. She blinks once, feeling tears well up, blinks again stubbornly, and is rewarded. The darkness takes the familiar shape of a black-haired man in a high-collared shirt. Her thoughts are sluggish, but a moment later she realizes that it's Sasuke and that he is talking to her. The light is streaming through the window behind him, and she herself is lying on a futon in a room that she has never seen before in her life.

She opens her mouth and croaks.

"Where are we?" Her throat is dry and she wishes she had a great big river somewhere around to gulp down.

"In the room I rented," says Sasuke in a voice that hints at both amusement and exasperation at the same time. He helps her up into a semblance of a sitting position and hands her a glass of water. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been hit over the head."

"That's what happened." She drinks and he takes the empty glass from her unresisting fingers. "And before that you'd been shot with a poisoned dart."

"What?" The medic in her awakens and panics, while the rest of her is still unable to think straight. "What kind of poison?"

"The local one. I gave you the antidote." Sasuke shrugs and adds. "You had it in your bag." He hesitates for a moment, then continues. "But I realized what had happened too late and there was enough poison in your system by that moment. You passed out and I had to carry you here."

"How long have I been unconscious?" She thinks with the overwhelming gratitude of Tsunade and her teachings. When she gets back to the village she'll go and thank the woman three or maybe five times.

"Almost two days."

Relief washing over her, Sakura tries to piece things together.

She managed to stand her ground and eventually persuaded Sasuke to take her with him on his second mission in the Land of Earth. The spent almost three days getting there and another three prancing about the endless wasteland as they searched for the criminal. She remembers sleeping, or rather, trying to fall asleep huddled behind a rock formation of a suggestive shape (if you looked at it from a distance, that is) and keeping watch when it was her turn to do so, straining her ears and hearing only Sasuke's even breathing as he rested near her, his hand never letting go of the sword. She recalls stumbling on the trail of the enemy – and it was her who found it, by the way! – feeling exhausted but also thrilled. They chased the man and caught up with him at the sunset, and they fought and killed him after a while. Sasuke did, to be more precise, stabbing him in the heart.

"When exactly did I get hit over the head?" she asks, puzzled. "I can't remember... Oh no. Do you think I have an amnesia?" _Honestly_, she thinks, _the last thing I need now_.

"You don't. The man had an accomplice. He was the one who knocked you out." Oddly enough, Sasuke seems very reluctant to discuss the topic.

Sakura bites her lip. She never noticed the second one. Never knew he was even there. Never sensed any other chakra except that of their primary target. She should be ashamed.

She _is_ ashamed. Some kunoichi she is.

"I had no idea he was not alone," she says in a small voice, examining her nails. She doesn't dare look Sasuke in the eyes.

She convinced him to take her on a dangerous mission and _that_ was all she managed to accomplish?

He says nothing for a long, long while. She tries to imagine what must be going through his head and only hopes he doesn't break up with her because of this blunder.

"I knew there were two of them," Sasuke says flatly. "I knew even before we caught up them. The second one was good at hiding his presence." Praise sounds like disdain when coming from him.

"You did know? But why... why didn't you warn me?" She raises her eyes and finds him gazing out the window with a carefully indifferent expression. "Don't you think I had to know too? Sasuke? Say something!"

"Hm."

"I don't have a Sharingan!" she spits out, both hurt and bewildered. "We can't all be Uchina, you know. If we are a team, you can't fight like you're all alone!"

"I know," he says sharply, and she realizes that his indifference is a mask he has put on to avoid looking her in the eye. "I miscalculated."

And that is as close to an apology as she is going to get. But she doesn't care, because normally she wouldn't get even that.

She puts her head down on the pillow again and orders herself to sleep.

-/-

"Sasuke..."

"Hm?"

"Did I help?"

He sets down the sword and stares at her, almost frowning but not quite. His eyes are very black, and there're lines around them, making him look older again – he must be very tired.

"Did I help you?" she presses, because it's important, it's the only important thing in the world. "Or did I get in your way? Did you wish I'd never come with you on this mission?"

Sasuke blinks, impassive as always, and for a moment she thinks he is not going to dignify her with a response – wouldn't be the first time – but then he speaks.

"Of course, you did help, Sakura. Now shut up and get back to sleep. You need rest." And he picks up the sword again.

She feels relief flood her from inside, relaxing her tense muscles and making her drowsy again. She has not been a burden to him, she has been part of the team, a partner, not a side-kick, not just a woman in love, but something more. He has made a mistake, and so has she, but what does it matter? There is a future she can build with him, and she can finally believe in it. It has become solid and real, so real she can almost touch it, no longer the substance of dreams and desires, but a bright landscape, a place she can call home. A place he will want to come back to because she will be there for him.

Happier than she has ever felt in her life before, Sakura drifts back to sleep and then awake again. She loses count of minutes and hours but every time she opens her eyes, Sasuke is still sitting on the floor cross-legged, inspecting his various weapons, cleaning and sharpening and setting aside those in need of a more serious maintenance.

She watches him sheathe his sword after one final critical glance and put it on the floor next to him. In a business-like manner, he gets up to his feet, walks to the window and pulls out the scroll they took from the dead shinobi's body. He unrolls it and begins reading. From where she lies on the futon, Sakura cannot discern any characters, but Sasuke seems quite content. She smiles and he seems to feel her attention, the weight of her stare, and turns his head to look back at her.

"Did I wake you up? I'll go outside. We have to set out early tomorrow." He pauses, then adds. "Try to sleep."

"Yes," she says, and he nods and walks out of the room into the evening sun. The doors closes behind him and she is alone.

She lies awake for a while, still thinking of the future. She has done so much to get where she is. Now she will no longer be lonely. The old Uchiha district will finally admit her right to walk its empty streets and bring life into its heart. When she's old, she won't need to have a garden full of silent red flowers.

Sakura thinks of all these things, and of Sasuke's eyes when he inspected the scroll. He had activated his Sharingan, no doubt to search for the hidden text, for the deepest secrets of the technique. In the twilight, she was able to see the hypnotic design clearly, in every intricate detail.

His Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan – more red than black.

The eyes that have seen the dawn of the century and the birth of the village.

She looks up at the empty ceiling and sighs. Then she turns on her side to face away from the door, away from the window.

It's amazing, the tricks the light can play.

Tomorrow they will set out for home, so she needs to regain her strength – it's a long journey. She is looking forward to it anyway, because no road is too long if you walk it beside the one you love. And he has finally let her in. She will not allow anything to ruin this for her. More than enough time has been spent dwelling on the past already. Her place is beside the one who needs her.

Nothing else matters.

-/-

end

* * *

_Updated A/N_: I don't normally have anything to say apart from the story itself, but here I think I owe you guys an explanation.

It goes like this: the genre of this story is officially mindfuck, it's just that you can't choose it from the dropdown list. Nevertheless, that's how it was intended to be written and that's what it is - an experiment. Basically, if you can't be sure of what the hell is going one with Sakura, I did my job well because that was exactly the point.

Also, if you see me put _romance_ somewhere, expect it to happen against the backdrop of intrigue, murder, insanity and surreal conversations - I mean, it's so much more exciting!

Anyway, hope you had fun - I know I did! :)


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